Distribution of real-time video and/or audio is sensitive to latency. As a result, lost packets in a stream are sometimes not retransmitted because the decoder at the destination device cannot use them to correct for the lost packet when the retransmitted packet eventually arrives. As a result, the quality of a video stream can become degraded when packets are lost at an unacceptable rate.
A network that delivers real-time audio or video content is referred to herein as a content delivery network (CDN). Applications, such as real-time video and/or audio, which use the real-time transport protocol (RTP) packet transport technique can determine when packet loss (or excessive delay) occurs as a device plays out the RTP content. Information about such loss can be reported. However, it is still difficult to determine where, in a network, the cause of the packet loss (or excessive delay) is occurring. If the location of the problem can be determined, then the device (hardware or software) that is causing the problem can be repaired or replaced and the service can be returned to better performance.